Articles

How to Obtain ROI on Your Outplacement Initiative

The problem with outplacement is that you receive little or no return on investment. It almost seems like a win-lose situation: your former employees receive help moving on from your organization, and you lose both your employee and your investment in outplacement. It’s time to reconceptualize out... More

How to Prevent 7 Common Problems in Mentoring Programs

Our mentoring program was successful, but we can’t prove it, and we’re about to lose funding for it. There’s too much pressure to implement a mentoring program, and no time to actually plan one. Our program’s mentees just aren’t learning the things that are necessary to their development. Everyon... More

Rethinking Performance Management

Performance Management as a Part of Your Talent Development Strategy The working world has changed – and traditional notions of performance management are no longer sufficient for maintaining and assessing a productive workforce. Performance management was initially designed to evaluate perfor... More

Rethinking Succession Planning

Changing Market Conditions Proactive Succession Planning = Organizational Success When it comes to determining your short- and long-term business strategy, succession planning is critical to your organizational success. Productive succession plans help organizations avoid talent shortages, ret... More

Increase Your ROI by Maintaining Alumni Relationships

While corporate alumni programs are still a relatively new concept for organizational strategies, they carry the potential for significant ROI from increased business development opportunities, strengthened company and employer brand, and reduced recruitment expenses. Corporate alumni programs ... More

Best Practices for Creating an Integrated Coaching and Mentoring Program

Sometimes you need more than what a mentoring program or coaching program alone can offer your organization. But if you only have the time and money to implement one program, which one should it be? It doesn’t have to be a matter of choosing one or the other. In a recent webinar, Insala’s Judy Corn... More

Defining the Differences between Mentoring and Coaching

If you’re considering implementing a mentoring or coaching initiative in your organization, you probably have questions. Which will best meet your objectives? Which employees will be better suited to mentoring than coaching, and vice-versa? Mentoring and coaching do have several fundamental similari... More

Designing a Mentoring Program That Improves Onboarding

We’ve all been through onboarding: the conference room, the policy agreements, the tax forms, the acronyms. How much of it all did we retain? And more importantly, how much of it was information that truly helped us understand the inner workings of our new company or learn new skills necessary for o... More

Mentoring Program Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Mentoring is as old as time and actively used in organizations today. Personally learning from someone who has been there and done that is the most fundamental way to pass along knowledge. It holds true whether its learning to start a fire, hunt, farm or for creating killer spreadsheets, writing cod... More

Deliver Effective Outplacement Services Through An Online Outplacement Solution

Are you looking to improve your present outplacement process? Are you an outplacement firm looking to cut costs and increase efficiency in your service delivery? Christine De Cock, Director of Career Solutions at Insala with over 20 years of experience in outplacement and career management, shares s... More

Mentoring and Talent Development: How to do they fit together?

If you are considering a targeted mentoring program for talent development, or if you presently manage a mentoring program, chances are you’ve been asked to provide a road map where at the end you are expected to tie it all together and prove it’s business value and ROI. With so many variables to c... More

6 Recommended Resources For Your Clients When Providing Outplacement

Internet use has become part of our daily routine, and it’s no different when someone finds out they've been laid-off. When someone finds out they've lost their job, she or he undoubtedly turns to the web to view online job listings. Christine De Cock, Director of Career Solutions at Insala with ove... More

How Can Mentoring Facilitate Learning and Development Across An Organization?

Mentoring is used today by organizations to satisfy any number of unique business objectives from onboarding, diversity or most often centering on leadership development, succession planning, employee career development and knowledge transfer. One trend now in learning and development (L&D) is tapp... More

7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Mentoring Program

Implementing any new company sponsored program can seem a daunting objective and pitfalls lay at every turn. Corporate mentoring programs are no different. To minimize challenges and maximize program results, we’d like to share seven recommendations that have proven successful to real-world mentor... More

How One Company Used Mentoring to Improve Time-to-Productivity for a Critical Role

According to a recent Monster.com survey, it takes 6.2 months on average for new managers to become productive enough to be considered profitable investments for the company. During that time period, new managers are actually expenses rather than valuable investments. Likewise, for any role – par... More

5 Critical Success Factors of Best-Practice Career Development Initiatives

What are the critical success factors of corporate career development initiatives? Phillip Roark, CEO at Insala and career development industry expert, recommends the following 5 key success factors that will maximize the effectiveness of your career development program. Process: Creating a s... More

How to Position Mentoring for Strategic Talent Development

There are many benefits of formal corporate mentoring program as a talent development strategy. For example, mentoring can be a cost-effective alternative or complement to traditional training programs, and a formal mentoring program’s alignment with critical business objectives can be clearly measu... More

The Importance Of Enabling Career Development With Internal Mobility Initiatives

“Internal mobility” and “career development”: both are critical concepts for HR and business leaders aiming to create high-performing organizations. But concepts aside – how do mobility and employee career development really tie together practically? Phillip Roark, CEO at Insala, with over 15 years ... More

What is Mentoring Today, and How is it Being Used Strategically within An Organization?

Mentoring, in one form or another, has been around for ages and much talk has been generated about mentoring in the workplace as a way to develop talent. If you are considering a corporate mentoring program or have been charged with the task of investigating mentoring, then clarifying some basic con... More

Successful Onboarding through Mentoring Programs

- Adjust New Employees to Company Culture Acclimating new employees to company culture has proven just as important as familiarizing them to their new roles. But how do companies do this during times of transition or change - to best prepare new employees to be successful? Judy Corner, a twenty-y... More

Best Practices for Managing Mentoring Programs within Large Organizations

The majority of large organizations see the benefits of mentoring and invest in it as a talent strategy. According to the Institute for Corporate Productivity, 64 percent of businesses with over 10,000 employees and 50 percent of those with 5,000-9,999 employees have mentoring programs in place. H... More

The Critical Differences Between Mentoring and Coaching

Today, coaching and mentoring are both seen as critical employee development strategies within leading companies. But ask several organizations about their approach to mentoring and their approach to coaching, and you are guaranteed to get (sometimes very) different ideas of what coaching and mento... More

6 Ways to Deliver Effective Outplacement Services

Is your organization considering implementing outplacement services for exiting staff or are you looking to improve your present outplacement process? Are you an outplacement firm looking to cut costs and increase efficiency in your service delivery? Christine De Cock, Director of Career Solutions... More

7 Things You Wish You had Known Before Starting a Corporate Mentoring Program

Does your organization currently have a mentoring program in place and would like to improve it? Or are you thinking about starting a mentoring program at your organization – but perhaps concerned about the pitfalls? Judy Corner, Mentoring Subject Matter Expert at Insala, makes the following 7 pract... More

How to Ensure a Successful Corporate Mentoring Program

Today, best-in-class organizations understand the benefits of corporate mentoring programs, but many organizations get “cold feet” when they think about how to manage a program successfully. As mentoring is a seemingly abstract activity within the ever-abstract realm of employee development, how do... More

Mentoring for Onboarding: Increase New Hire Retention and Maximize Hiring Investment

At a time when "employees" and "human capital" are synonymous in the eyes of both HR and non-HR leaders, there seems to be an easy formula for "people success": invest the money to attract the best people, then make them stay for as long as possible and generate a retur... More

Mentoring – Enhancing Diversity Strategically and Sustainably for Real Business Results

In today's world, best-in-class organizations understand that racial, cultural, and gender diversity in the workplace is no longer a nice-to-have, but a necessity in order to remain competitive and deliver sustainable bottom line results. A diverse and inclusive organization is able to recognize and... More

Outplacement Opportunities in Online Identity Management

The "war for talent" has certainly tipped its scales in recent years, to the chagrin of jobseekers. Candidates must now make themselves more impressive both in ability and display, while embracing the technological paradigm shifts that permeate their job search process. That said, the in today's tig... More

People Developing People: The Move to Mentoring

Article written by Agatha Gilmore and published in Chief Learning Officer MagazineWhen times are tough, we often look to our friends and colleagues for support. That human connection and sharing of knowledge is an invaluable tool for navigating a crisis — and now, it’s an economical one, too. Accord... More

The Benefits of Hi-Tech, Hi-Touch Mentoring

As a rule of thumb, every HR leader knows and employs the positive ROI rule when deciding on a new initiative. This rule is especially important when investing in talent management technology, which requires an additional cash outlay for the company and changes the way in which many HR administrator... More

6 Ways to Obtain ROI Using Our Outplacement Solution

EmploymentTalk™ - the leading online career transition solution, has helped many Outplacement and Career Management Firms cut costs and win new business. How can this easily configurable solution achieve this especially in today's challenging economic climate? Here are just a few examples:Generate M... More

Want that dream job, Gen Y? Be different, be yourselves, but "be good" too

How should the members of Generation Y approach their careers and job search today? Should they push autonomy aside and let their Baby Boomer employers and managers mould them into professionals in their vision? Or should they march to their own drummers and leave employers to adapt to their behavio... More

Mentoring - Helping leaders and managers grow and develop.

Growing leadership expertise in a short period of time within an organization is a continual challenge. The speed of projects and the need for innovation have increased to a point that organizations are moving people into positions of management and leadership at an ever-increasing pace. How can em... More

CEPEC Career Management providing Hi-Tech Hi-Touch Outplacement Services with EmploymentTalk

The ChallengeArup is a global firm of consulting engineers, designers, planners and project managers. During a recent restructuring, it made 140 of its London staff positions redundant. As an employer that has always gone the extra mile to “take care” of its staff from entry to exit, Arup has forged... More

Mentoring Across the Generation Gap

Nowadays, the age-old image of the wise, older sage imparting wisdom and knowledge to the younger, less experienced protégé no longer epitomizes the typical mentoring relationship. “Modern” mentoring relationships are far more varied and wider in scope. Today’s mentoring relationships do not conform... More

Outplacement: The New Opportunity For Recruiters

Have you considered expanding into the outplacement market? This research-based article provides factual data from the most current prominent studies – outlining a compelling business opportunity for recruiters. Learn statistics about:outplacement industry growth/recruitment industry declineoutplac... More

Outplacement Industry Forecast 2nd Half 2009

In November 2008 we prepared an in-depth research review of the outplacement market resulting in The Insala Outplacement Industry Forecast for 2009. As this research was well received, and world economies are continuing to struggle, we are providing an updated Outplacement Industry Forecast – 2nd H... More

The Importance of Qualifying and Properly Matching Mentors and Mentees

When an organization initiates a mentoring initiative, it is often so anxious to have individuals participate that it launches the initiative without establishing role-specific qualifications, or prudently assessing Mentor / Mentee quality. Ambiguous Mentor / Mentee criteria can pose several problem... More

How can we measure mentoring?

When measuring the success of a Mentoring initiative, the essential first step is to identify the business objectives that the initiative was created to accomplish. Once the objectives have been identified, the effectiveness of the initiative can be properly assessed.2 examples of successful mentori... More

Mentoring in the Best of Times and the Worst of Times

No matter what shape the economy is in, how the industry is forecasted, or what is on the horizon for market demands, when it comes to identifying a just-in-time, time-efficient and cost effective way to develop people…it’s mentoring.If your organization is going through changes right now including ... More

Top 5 Talent Acquisition Tips for 2009

With one year ending and another beginning it is a time to reflect on the past and look to the future. I enjoyed reading Madelaine Laurano’s All Aboard blog and I have repositioned her predictions with regards to the UK market and realigned it with our business objectives. With this in mind, here ar... More

Employee Redundancy tips on how to move forward.

Redundancy may often seem like a nightmare, but don’t despair, here are some top tips from Insala, which will help you cope:Do not panic – if you have been in employment for two continuous years you are more than likely eligible to redundancy pay. This will help keep you going while you find a new ... More

Redundancy tips for employers

Redundancies are difficult for employers, and one mistake may result in severe consequences, financial or otherwise, for the organisation. Here are some top tips in partnership with jobs board monster.co.uk and Insala on tackling redundancy situations. View published article on personneltoday.com Es... More

HR Priorities for 2009 and Beyond

What challenges face HR in 2009 and beyond? What about recent economic events – are they impacting HR priorities? How are top-performing HR managers responding? What concrete steps can you take? The research is clear. This cutting-edge article aggregates factual data from the most current, prom... More

The Insala Outplacement industry forecast for 2009

With world economies tumbling and layoffs looming, what is the outlook for the outplacement industry? Is it enjoying a resurgence? What is the forecast for layoffs? Who is being hit the hardest? What’s new in layoff legislation? How are outplacement firms transforming to meet changing market dem... More

Improving Mentoring and Communication through Online Programs

Why is mentoring important? Over the next three years, more than 19 million American workers will reach 65, the traditional retirement age, causing the Bureau of Labor Statistics to project that there will be a shortfall of more than 10 million skilled workers by 2010. According to Christie Jeavans ... More

Multi-Generational Management

A multi-generation workforce is great—more viewpoints and ideas to contribute towards innovation. But as great as it is, organizations are concerned about employee tension due to differing experiences, values, expectations, work habits, and communication styles. Luckily there are proven strategies f... More

Motivating and Retaining Top Talent through Employee Engagement

According to a recent poll conducted by The Gallup Management Group only 30% of U.S. employees are fully engaged in their jobs. Improving employee engagement can increase productivity and profitability while also reducing employee absenteeism and turnover. The Gallup Management Group reported that ... More

Support for E-Learning

How can mentoring assist an individual in his/her e-learning?There are many advantages to e-learning as a vehicle to assist individuals in their development. These include:offering just-in-time learninglearning that is on a focused topicallowing individuals to attend the learning event on their own... More

Mentoring in Good Times and Hard Times

Our Organization is going through many changes right now including a major downsizing. Is now the time to initiate a Mentoring Process?Absolutely! Many organizations feel like the timing has to be just right before they can initiate projects. Sometimes that can be true – but mentoring is an initia... More

The Outplacement Industry 2008 Forecast UK

What is the outlook for the outplacement industry in 2008? Will it thrive? How will your business be affected? A current review of recent research is optimistic. This article explores factual data on upcoming layoffs, increased usage of outplacement, new proposed legislation likely boosting the ... More

What are the differences between Coaching and Mentoring?

This is a question that is asked quite frequently in today’s business climate. When this question was asked only a few years ago, the answer was much more clear and defined, because there were fewer professional coaches, less performance emphasis and pressure on a manager to coach his/her employees ... More

Outplacement Industry Forecast 2008

What is the outlook for the outplacement industry in 2008? Will it thrive? How will your business be affected? A current review of recent research is optimistic. This article explores factual data on upcoming layoffs, increased usage of outplacement, new proposed legislation likely boosting the ... More

Outplacement Services Industry. Some New Statistics

Over the past five to 10 years, the outplacement industry has experienced the effects of "belt-tightening" by many companies. Shifting financial priorities for such companies coupled with commoditization within the outplacement industry seemingly have brought forth this period of economization. Are... More

Mentoring as a Business Strategy

How can we build a business case for “mentoring”? You can and you should! An important step to change perceptions regarding the concept of mentoring is to position mentoring correctly and to build a business case. In building a business case, start with the foundation. The first building block is to... More

Is Your Mentoring Initiative Working?

As mentoring becomes more and more popular, more and more organizations are adopting this initiative as a way for individuals to learn, growand develop. The popularity of this concept has grown exponentially in the last five years. Does your organization have a mentoring initiative?Is it working?Are... More

Corporate Responsibility: What can U.S. companies learn from U.K. policies and their human capital benefits?

Growing concerns about climate change, rapid industrialization, consumer product safety, data privacy, pension sustainability, and the impact of outsourcing and offshoring have heightened awareness of “corporate responsibility.” This focus, along with recent legislation, has prompted companies acr... More

Corporate Responsibility U.S. Research Review. How Does the US fare against Europe?

Corporate Responsibility is a sweeping trend effecting organizations around the globe. Spawning from increased public awareness of such global issues as climate change, consumer product safety and rapid industrialization, Corporate Responsibility is becoming a mainstream concept, recognized by most... More

Corporate Responsibility U.K. Research Review. How does the U.K. fare against the U.S.?

Growing concerns about climate change, rapid industrialisation, consumer product safety, data privacy, pension sustainability, and the impact of outsourcing and offshoring have heightened awareness of “corporate responsibility.” This focus, along with recent legislation, has prompted companies acr... More